Environmental safety of the global information space

Abstract

The article considers advantages and disadvantages of the global information space, which has long been an integral part of the ecosystem, the man being its central part. According to the degree of its influence on the man the global information space is coming to the forefront in the community, providing both positive and negative effects on the society, its economy, science, politics and education. Positive effects of globalization of the information space are unification and simplification of the access to vast amounts of any information, easiness of orientation in the information space, simplification of interpersonal communication forms. Negative effects of the global information space may include the following:

1. 1.     there is no censorship as such in the present-day global information space, everybody can be their own reviewers, censors and defenders;
2. 2.     duplicate information is often significantly distorted;
3. 3.     total analyticity of repeated data arrays is very low;
4. 4.     an increase of the amount of information leads to a significant dependence of a person on the computer;
5. 5.     an unrestrained growth of the Internet-related crime.

Databases of full-text publications – journals, articles, monographs- are surely a means of salvation for science. There already exist a large number of such portals. Besides, advantages and disadvantages of electronic subscriptions to periodicals should certainly be considered. The former include the following most evident ones: aggregation of large data arrays, saving money on a subscription, an opportunity to work with relevant publications, thematic collections of materials, availability of records, simultaneous access of an unlimited number of users and others. Nevertheless, there are many disadvantages that make it difficult to work with full-text publications. They are the following: selective representativeness of publication numbers, complexity of keyword search, occasional presence of obsolete text formats, printed versions, possible psychological barrier, physiological incompatibility with computer equipment, fatigue caused by prolonged work on the computer. The Internet was followed by the appearance of global control networks, their aims ranging from control of a human life support to a unified control of humanity. So, the formed global information space promises the man to get access to almost any information source. Meanwhile, environmental safety of the man, his/her objective biological psyche and abilities in harmonious development are at serious risk